So it seems Trackmania Wii is 2 days from release in Europe... and so far I have seen no promotion, no reviews... NO MENTION of the game ANYWHERE. What's going on here?

The release date was moved to September 23 earlier this year and there's been no change to that, I see it on the Nintendo channel as "September 23" so I presume Nintendo thinks it's arriving on that date too.

Why is this game getting such a low-level stealth release? I was seriously considering getting this game as it looked fantastic, but apart from the standard PR there is little to no information on this title - and the terrible lack of support for it demonstrated so far is making me reconsider.

I went to buy this on day of release and the UKs biggest videogame store GAME told me they were only selling it online. Also checked again 2 days later and couldn't find it in tesco or asda either. Finally found it in HMV. the game is brilliant and am loving the multiplayer with my housemates. It deserves better marketing than this!!!

Can't find it anywhere in Finland either. Also, there's only three reviews in metacritic.com and the game is already released. It really seems like the publisher doesn't believe this game has too much market potential? I wonder why's that because the game is really popular amongst pc-players and there's not too much good online racing games out there on Wii. I was really anticipating this title.

Now I'm not sure if I will even buy it. If they're not selling it anywhere and the stores didn't even know the game excisted until I asked them, will there be any players online? I mean who the hell wants to play trackmania offline? Not me.

Ranta-V wrote:Can't find it anywhere in Finland either. Also, there's only three reviews in metacritic.com and the game is already released. It really seems like the publisher doesn't believe this game has too much market potential? I wonder why's that because the game is really popular amongst pc-players and there's not too much good online racing games out there on Wii. I was really anticipating this title.

Now I'm not sure if I will even buy it. If they're not selling it anywhere and the stores didn't even know the game excisted until I asked them, will there be any players online? I mean who the hell wants to play trackmania offline? Not me.

How much publicity has any TM game had? In the UK I've only ever seen a few reviews and a demo of each TM title over the years. TMNF has had a bit more as it's free but other than that...I would have thought it is a budget thing - advertising is very expensive and the publishers of TM Wii, Focus, probably don't have the money to get it the worldwide recognition it deserves.

Oh and I played TM offline for many years, but yeah it's a lot better online

Yeah well I consider the first console release to be a bit more significant now when the pc versions have gained the popularity they deserve after many years. PC Trackmania kind of came out of nowhere as a free game from a small indie developer so I see it was a totally different situation.

Well you who have the game, tell me is there enough company to play with online?

My Wii's softmodded (to play NTSC smash bros. brawl) and it's not like I'm suggesting I'm planning to just pirate Trackmania because I'm not. But the problem is I just can't upgrade my system firmware any more, so if the game runs through Neogamma or something without any silly errors then I need to know.

I want to buy this. I want to play it. If it only runs on firmware 4.2 or 4.3 or whatever it's currently at, then I'm looking at having to buy a new Wii ... which I don't want to have to do

It should work fine, I don't think Wii games need a specific firmware to run like other systems, just as long as you install all of the IOS's you need.

I haven't personally tried this yet though since It's not out in the US yet, I'll probably wait to buy the US version when it comes out... At least as long as it ends up being a good game, what I've heard so far doesn't seem so positive...